Career Academy, Mannheim

Paper in the subject Business English

Doing business with the Japanese!

by

Oliver Fendel

Contents

1 Introduction ... 1

2 The Japanese Company ... 1

3 General Aspects to be Taken into Consideration ... 3
3.1 Hierarchy, Status, and Respect ... 3
3.2 Communication Style and Conversation ... 4

4 Rules for Doing Business in Japan ... 6
4.1 Maintaining Surface Harmony ... 6
4.2 Concern with Face ... 6
4.3 Business Dress ... 6
4.4 Forms of Address ... 7
4.5 Wining, Dining, and Entertaining ... 7

5 Important Rituals ... 9
5.1 Exchange of the Business Card ... 9
5.2 Gift-Giving and Receiving ... 9

6 Meetings and Negotiations ... 10
6.1 Language of Business ... 10
6.2 Making the Initial Contact ... 10
6.3 Punctuality ... 11
6.4 Getting Acquainted Before Talking Business ... 11
6.5 Making a Presentation ... 11
6.6 Determining One′s Bargaining Range ... 12
6.7 Concession and Decision-Making Behaviour ... 12
6.8 The Role of the Contract ... 13

Bibliography ... II

1 Introduction

Although the world is still devided into different countries and regions it grows together steadily. Companies buy the components and ingredients for their products from suppliers in many different countries to get best quality at lowest costs and sell their products and services to costumers all over the world.

Because of this globalization it gets more and more important to learn and to know the special rules, rituals, and the way of thinking in a differtent culture, if a company wants to do business there. The old saying "When in Rome do as the Romans do" is still valid. The differences exist between all coutries and cultures not only between Europe and Asia. The knowledge about the differences can and will build the first step to a successful relationship.

This paper deals with the Japanese etiquette and ethics in business. What should a foreigner think about when doing business with Japanese business partners? Chapter 1 is about the structure and the peculiarities of Japanese companies. Afterwards general aspects to be taken into consideration are described. The chapters 4 and 5 deal with rules for doing business with the Japanese and with two important rituals in Japanese business culture. The last chapter provides guidelines for successful meetings and negotiations.

2 The Japanese Company

For the Japanese it is first of all not the profession which is important, in contrast to Germany for example the Japanese will first tell somebody for which company they work for. They speak of their company and workplace in a possessive way. The Japanese word for company, kaisha (kie-shah), has strong connotations of "community". The identification of Japanese with their employers is in general so strong it prevents them from having contact with other people in their profession, spontaneous relationships are practically out of question. This behaviour makes it difficult to establish business relations with employees of other unknown companies, especially when someone is forced to do business with such "enemies".Another business practice is that in Japan the person is the most likely one to be promoted who gets along with everybody, is good in maintaining harmony and is flexible. The reason for this practice is that otherwise they are afraid the people will be more concerned about themselves than about fellow workers. Since the employees are likely to spend their whole life with the same co-workers it is not difficult to understand why everybody is not about to disturb the harmony.

The Japanese philosophy is that companies with good human relations will succeed, while companies with bad human relations will fail. Because of that Japanese firms train a "company morality" so the employees are bound together by emotional, economic, and social ties that transcend all others. To reach this goal the companies prefer - among other things - to hire new stuff directly from school when they are more susceptible to being imbused with the company philosophy.

Japanese companies look more like social organizations than business enterprises, they are a combination of an exclusive club, a cooperative union, and a business enterprise because it incorporates attributes of all three.

Japanese companies are first classified according to industrial catagory, then by size and market share and finally by whatever group of companies the individual firm may be affiliated with. Major companies are called first-class companies, medium-sized ones are called second-class and smaller ones are third-class companies. Each industrial catagory tends to be made up of a few very large companies and a large number of medium-sized and small firms. A part of the motivation that spurs the Japanese economy continuously is the competition for the title and prestige of a first-class company. Also the competition among young Japanese high school and college gratuates to enter these first-class companies is equally intense, because social status is more important to most Japanese than economic status.

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